Wide Angle Options for the 10bar LX3 housing

[flounderer]

I'm researching the options for wide-angle lenses for my 10Bar Housing for the Panasonic Lumix LX3. It looks like there are 2 options for wet lenses, INON and 10Bar. Does anyone have experience with either. INON makes the UWL-100 and an optional dome. There is a "type 1" and "type 2" option for this product and I'm unsure which to use. I'm liking the INON route mainly due to name recognition. 10Bar makes the same kind of set up but I'm not as familiar with their line. How is the build quality of 10Bar lenses? If it's anything like their housing I would not be worried. I'm also curious about vignetting, do either of these items cause it? I really know nothing about lenses so I'm hoping to gain a little insight before taking this expensive journey.

Pat

 

[Nemrod]

That camera is a 24mm prime lens. You will probably have some difficulty matching an Inon lens which are intended for 35mm native lenses to that camera. The Inon WAL100-28AD might work but it is a bayonet mount.

In any case, if you were to try and match an Inon 100WAL-67mm threaded lens you would want the Type II pretty sure. You will find these lenses severely vignette at 24mm, you will have to zoom to the 35mm range and if your lens retreats very far when it does you will get instead of vignetting an out of focus periphery.

This is why I got the S90 instead of that camera, the 28mm (zoomed to 35mm) of the S90 can be made to work but the 24mm is very doubtful. The S90 lens does not retreat very far when zoomed to 35mm and the small zoom/rack distance keeps the wet lenses close enough to work, at least with the FIX housing, the 10Bar, dunno. Hope it works out for you.

Good luck.

N

 

[scottfiji]

hey flounderer - you can get excellent wide-angle options with the 10bar housing. I did a writeup on the 10bar lx3 housing wide-angle options. Hope this helps

Scott

 

[flounderer]

Thanks for both replies, they have both helped....and brought on some more questions. Your explanation of how the dynamics between lenses and zooms makes a lot of sense Nemrod, I really didn't understand what brought on vignetting. Scott, you website is great!

I wonder what Edving Eng had to do to get those picture with his setup, nothing at all, zoom far in to 35mm, or edit the vignetting out in post production?

I doubt if anyone will know on this board but I'm wondering if the possibility of vignetting is reduced with the 10Bar setup because it is specifically designed for it?

Thanks again,
Patrick

 

[Nemrod]

Thanks for both replies, they have both helped....and brought on some more questions. Your explanation of how the dynamics between lenses and zooms makes a lot of sense Nemrod, I really didn't understand what brought on vignetting. Scott, you website is great!

I wonder what Edving Eng had to do to get those picture with his setup, nothing at all, zoom far in to 35mm, or edit the vignetting out in post production?

I doubt if anyone will know on this board but I'm wondering if the possibility of vignetting is reduced with the 10Bar setup because it is specifically designed for it?

Thanks again,
Patrick

What you should look into before buying anything, I am getting one as soon as I save the money up, is the Fisheye brand UL-04 with the 52/67mm threaded mount. This lens has a hard coated plastic dome and is a six inch diameter instead of the optical coated glass five inch dome of the Inon. This will save you some money, additionally the Fisheye lens may be less weight, especially underwater, the Inon with dome is quite heavy and expensive. Of course, the Inon equipment is top notch quality. Another thing, I cannot seem to verify is the actually FOV of the wet mount version of the Fisheye lens, I keep hearing it and seeing it written on the photog sites that it is a 165 degree diagonal lens but the Fisheye site states it is a .42X 131 degree lens. The question is, do they mean diagonal or horizontal? If that is a horizontal dimension then indeed it may be 165 degrees diagonal, if you follow. But, the only way I see to answer this is to buy one and then test it which is what I intended to do.

I like the "always full sensor" feature of the LX3 when you choose 16:9, 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratios, that is clever.

Yes, Scott has a great site. It seems, I am just guessing, is that despite the 24mm native lens, the small 3X zoom ratio of the LX3 must have a short rack distance (the distance the lens moves from zoom to wide if you follow). This would keep the lens very close to the port glass thus reducing the tendency to vignette or have an out of focus periphery. These lenses, you can read it on the Inon site, and I have tested it, have a zone or distance from the native lens that they are meant to operate within and if the lens is to far away, well, that is undesirable. I imagine, just from what I know about the lenses, and I do in fact own a 100WAL Type II with Inon dome, that the 10Bar/LX3 combo will require zooming to 35mm equivalent to eliminate severe vignetting.

Good luck with it.

N

 

[scottfiji]

Scott, you website is great!

I wonder what Edving Eng had to do to get those picture with his setup, nothing at all, zoom far in to 35mm, or edit the vignetting out in post production?

Thanks again,
Patrick

hey Patrick - thanks for the great feedback on the site. I can't say for sure if Edvin had to zoom in. I will try to find out from him. He did not edit out vignetting.

Regardless, imho the results are excellent and clearly show that the setup (note that he uses the dome unit) has a very wide field of view and achieves "true" wide angle.

 

[Nemrod]

Those pics appear to be 4X6 crops (or even 16:9) but nonetheless excellent. Since the LX3 has the "Full View" sensor I am not sure how that would present itself, I can see it might be a very useful feature, if I understand how it works. Read about the Multi-Aspect Ratio full view sensor here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicdmclx3/

Down load this Inon lens PDF and go to pages 18 and 19, in fact, read the whole thing:

http://www.inon.jp/_userdata/DL_PDF/inonlens2009_en.pdf

N

 

[flounderer]

Thanks again you two! I'm really liking the UWL-04 option due to the price. There is some good info on it on here. For the cost savings, I may just try that one. I did see some pics with bad vignetting with a INON 165mm dome which may be duplicated with the UWL-04. I'll keep researching!

Pat

 

[Nemrod]

Thanks again you two! I'm really liking the UWL-04 option due to the price. There is some good info on it on here. For the cost savings, I may just try that one. I did see some pics with bad vignetting with a INON 165mm dome which may be duplicated with the UWL-04. I'll keep researching!

Pat

The Inon 165AD fisheye lens is a compact lens with 4 inch dome, it is very different from the UL-04 or Inon 100WAL (plus dome). For one thing it is a real 165 degree diagonal FOV fisheye lens and it's design is very critical on proper distance spacing. I took this pic in the pool with my S90 with the Inon 165AD lens, no crop:

I would not draw any conclusions or extrapolate anything from the Inon 165AD to either the Inon 100WAL or the UL-04, my opinion. Again, just my thought, the 165AD will be far worse about vignetting that either of those two, well, actually, it is not opinion regarding the 100WAL, it is FACT, the UL-04, opinion because I do not have one yet in my hands. My guess is that if the WAL100 with dome works with your camera, the Fisheye UL-04 would also work as well, in some ways perhaps better. But, that is just a educated guess.

N

 

[flounderer]

OK Nemrod, I pulled the trigger and went with the UWL-04 to test this thing out. It should be here in a week or so. When it comes in I'll take it to the fish tanks to get some test shots. The $400 was much easier to swallow than the $700-800.

Thanks again,
Patrick